Sneak peek of upcoming Fire TV remote app launcher

I was able to get an early sneak peek at a handy new app coming to the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick called App Shortcut Remote. It allows you to remotely launch apps on your Fire TV device using an Android or iOS smartphone. The app is elegant in its simplicity and works perfectly. You simply enter your Fire TV’s IP address in the client app on your mobile device and a list of apps installed on your Fire TV appear.

The Fire TV app, which must first be installed on your Fire TV for the client apps to work, will be $2.99 when it’s released. The app is currently going through Amazon’s approval process and should be available any day now. The client apps for Android and iOS devices will be free and released once the Fire TV app gets approved. The iOS app will work on iOS 7.0 and up, while the Android app will support version 4.1 and up.

Currently, the client app simply displays a list of all the apps installed on your Fire TV. Tapping any app in the list will instantly launch the app on your Fire TV. There’s no need to go to the Fire TV’s home screen first. This is by far the fastest way to quickly switch between apps on the Fire TV. Your Fire TV does NOT need to be rooted to use this app. The developer tells me that he’s already working on a future version of the app which will allow you to manually reorder the app list so that you can put your most frequently used apps at the top. He also plans to add a feature which lets you choose an app to be launched on your phone after a Fire TV app is launched. This would allow you to automatically launch, for example, the Kodi remote app on your phone when selecting to launch Kodi on the Fire TV.

I’ll be sure to write up a post once this handy new app becomes available to everyone.

this app doesn’t require root either and has a quick app launch. mouse mode. and other features only problem is its only partially translated to English but that’s more then enough for most people to figure out how to use it.

Seems like a nice app but charging for it leaves a sour taste in my mouth when you consider the way the rest of the community has contributed to AFTV development and modding. I’ve donated to both rbox and AFTVnews to say thanks for the efforts, but will most likely pass this one by if the price tag remains $2.99. After all, this just seems like streamlining of some adb commands, which means someone else could easily remake it.

Ya, how dare he ask to be compensated for his work, and who knows what else he’s sacrificed. Shame on him. $2.99 is so much money.

I’ll never understand people complaining about other people charging for their work. Do you work for free? If it’s so easy then just keep quiet and do it yourself. Hell, do it and charge $1.99 instead, or just don’t say anything at all. I’ll most likely buy this app regardless if I use it or not because of comments like these.

I felt like I walked the line between complaining and stating my opinion, but to some there is no difference. The developer is welcome to charge, I’m simply stating that charging seems counter to the position the rest of the AFTV/XBMC community has taken to this point.

I was not willing to pay for it at 2.99 but After I seen the other app that the link was posted im willing to pay 2.99 the other app looks fishy and I do not trust it. So to be on the safe side I rather pay 2.99 since it’s posted here and aftvnews had not let me down and I trust what administration post on here. Thank you for info and price of this new app.

Apps tell you what there permissions are so how is something free fishy only thing fishy is the brain if you’re willing to be a sucker… is a library fishy??? Or do you just prefer to pay for every book that eventually will lay around. Power to the people

Unfortunately I’m on IOS devices for phone and tablet so those don’t work for me. If it comes out with the ios client then its a definite purchase for me. On the flipside, who actually buys amazon apps? I still have over 2700 in points from all the free points they gave out in October. I thinks at one time I was up to 4900.

No, I am not being paid to promote this app and I have never accepted money for writing a post of any kind. The developer contacted me to let me know about the app and gave me the app early. I consider a new Fire TV focused app to be newsworthy, so i wrote about it. I did not know about the Wukong app when I created this post. Had the Wukong app developer contacted me about their app when it was being released, I would have written a post about it. Writing a post about it now would be more of a “review” post and not a “news” post. I tend to avoid “review” posts because I feel my single opinion is not nearly as valuable as the plethora of constantly updating reviews found in the appstore.

So the answer to your question of “why have you not posted about the free app” is I was not aware of its release and I generally don’t review apps.